Traditional Chinese History Essay

Abstraction

It is non a secret that the Chinese written linguistic communication is one of the most ancient linguistic communications on the Earth planet. In fact. hieroglyphs are considered to be the most important portion of the traditional Chinese history and the most of import marks of the Chinese civilisation.

In general. the Chinese linguistic communication includes about 50 1000s of hieroglyphs. but merely 5-8 1000s are practically used and as it is known about 3-4 1000s of hieroglyphs are adequate for reading the modern literature. Besides. it continues to unify many cultural groups. But. why? It is a really interesting inquiry …

Traditional Chinese History

The Chinese written linguistic communication is suggested to be an astonishing phenomenon among the modern composing systems. It is of import to cognize that other hieroglyphic linguistic communications. which took topographic point in the Near East. South Asia. China. Central America disappeared long clip ago and became merely the objects of the ancient history. As to the Chinese written linguistic communication. it managed to accommodate to all altering conditions during the long development procedure of Chinese civilisation and to go the most sensible tool for composing in China in the terminal.

Harmonizing to the archaeological information. early history of the Chinese written linguistic communication began from the letterings on the ceramic vass of the Neolithic period of clip. It should be pointed out that all letterings were simple by their signifiers. It was obvious that the signifiers of letterings were changed depending on assorted Neolithic civilizations of that clip. At the same clip. some simple marks. revealed on the vass. were entire for several civilizations ( Origins of Chinese composing. 2006. p. 1 ) .

In fact. the historiographers consider these letterings as the ancient marks of the Chinese written linguistic communication. The differences. which were demonstrated in graphical signifiers of marks. in some grade. could intend that each Neolithic civilization had its ain written linguistic communication.

The point is that. the particular conditions ( both graphical and proficient ) are required for making the written linguistic communication. For case. the stuff on which assorted marks were cut had to hold the particular surface. which could match to the possibilities of the tool chosen for composing. In China. like in the other civilisation centres the first authorship tool was some sharpened object. which could be used for cutting thin lines and hence. the stuff had to possess soft surface.

Coming back to the history we can see that ceramic industry was really popular in China. So. Chinese craftsmen knew assorted ways of covering decoration and other images on the natural and burned stuffs. That’s why both petroleum and burned clay were regarded to be the most available stuff chosen for authorship ( p. 1 ) .

It should be emphasized that the uncommonness of the Chinese written linguistic communication continues to pull the attending of many specializers and amateurs. There is even the particular literature. which describes this uncommonness in item. but the scientific perusal of its history began merely at the terminal of the 19-th century after some ancient groundss of the Chinese written linguistic communication were found.

The find of the prophet castanetss took topographic point in China in1899. when a bookman from Peking was prescribed the particular redress. which had to incorporate alleged “dragon bones” for his unwellness: the fact is that “dragon bones” were widely used in Chinese medical specialty at that clip and normally referred to dodos of dead animate beings. The bookman besides managed to detect several really interesting carvings that looked like some sort of composing linguistic communication on the castanetss he acquired from the local pharmaceutics ( p. 1 ) .

Peoples frequently have the feeling that Chinese characters are highly hard to larn. In fact. if you were to try to larn how to compose Chinese characters. you would happen that they are non about every bit hard as you may hold imagined. And they surely qualify as organizing one of the most absorbing. beautiful. logical. and scientifically constructed composing systems in the universe ( Chinese written linguistic communication. 2006. p. 1 ) .

Comparing with alphabetic linguistic communication. hieroglyphic linguistic communication has more hard graphical construction of its symbols and includes several thousand marks. For illustration. the latest Chinese linguistic communication includes about 50 1000 marks. No other celebrated hieroglyphic linguistic communication had such a great figure. This illustration demonstrates how many symbols hieroglyphic linguistic communication can incorporate during a long period of clip.

The chief characteristic of phonemic and syllabic written languages shows that the lingual units themselves don’t have the certain significance. In fact. hieroglyphic composing demonstrates such of import lingual units as words and morphemes. In other words. it transmits the content program of the certain lingual units. It is clear that alphabetic authorship is intended for some particular province of one linguistic communication. In other words. it can’t be used by another linguistic communication without some particular alterations. So that. the chief characteristic of hieroglyphic authorship is universality. As we can see. this glorious characteristic allowed the modern Chinese written linguistic communication to unify many cultural groups in a individual whole ( p. 1 ) .

Theoretically. hieroglyphs can be used for authorship by other linguistic communications. The history of the Chinese written linguistic communication and a immense experience of using hieroglyphs by Vietnamese and some Thai linguistic communications can turn out the given fact.

As the experience of using the Chinese hieroglyphs by the Japanese and Korean linguistic communications showed – the successful use of hieroglyphs for agglutinant linguistic communications can be really successful and effectual if the alphabetic authorship is used at the same clip.

There is besides another advantage of the Chinese written linguistic communication – each symbol is independent on its reading. The fact is that each symbol of hieroglyphic authorship can be read otherwise depending on the figure of linguistic communications. which are normally used by the given authorship. So that. we can state the Chinese hieroglyphs have non merely one significance. in fact. it can be besides read and understood by such linguistic communications as Korean. Nipponese and Vietnamese.

It should be besides said that each hieroglyph has both the “national” significances and many dialectical. At the same clip. in the South China one hieroglyph can hold two wholly different significances – spoken and literary. As usual. the 2nd significance is widely used for reading written texts and articulating the scientific and cultural footings ( Origins of Chinese composing. 2006. p. 1 ) .

The independency from the existent pronunciation of lingual units allows hieroglyphic composing besides to hold some alleged “timeless” belongingss. It means that if a reader knows the grammatical construction of the linguistic communication. so the text of hieroglyphic authorship can be wholly understood despite the day of the month it was written and its symbols can be read by the aid of any convenient manner.

It is known. that today. the ancient hieroglyphic texts can be otherwise understood by the aid of the national reading of hieroglyphs. any dialectic readings. Nipponese. Korean and Vietnamese readings despite the fact they could hold another significance at the minute of their creative activity.

All these belongingss of the Chinese hieroglyphic composing played a really of import function in the development of the Chinese national civilization and history and allowed the Chinese written linguistic communication to populate so long in malice of all troubles it had to face. In add-on. due to its originality this linguistic communication managed to go one of the most wide-spread linguistic communications among the people all over the World.

Taking into consideration all these historical information we can come to the undermentioned decision – the Chinese written linguistic communication is considered to be a alone phenomenon among the other written linguistic communications. which besides took topographic point in the World history. So. it is alone hieroglyphic linguistic communication which is really interesting for analyzing. Chinese is the lone major composing system of the universe that continued its pictograph-based development without break. and that is still in general modern usage ( Chinese written linguistic communication. 2006. p. 1 ) .

Coming back to the history of the Chinese written linguistic communication we can stress that the given hieroglyphic authorship has managed to travel through several phases of its development. Having made a great trade of efforts to alter it reformers manage to do the Chinese written linguistic communication more available for people.

However. the chief rules and characteristic of the modern Chinese authorship continue to be unchanged during several thousand old ages. So. that’s why in order to understand the Chinese civilization. the traditional Chinese history. the Chinese civilisation and if it is possible the Chinese traditional political orientation – both the Chinese written linguistic communication and its history should be studied in item.

Mentions

Chinese written linguistic communication.Retrieved August 10. 2006. from World Wide Web. chinatownconnection. com/chinese_written_language. htm

Beginnings of Chinese authorship.Retrieved August 10. 2006. from hypertext transfer protocol: //www. logoi. com/notes/chinese_origins. hypertext markup language